This post explains the some more tips on using Visual C# IDE to enhance developer productivity.

• Solution Configurater  Right click your solution in your IDE then select the ConfigurationManager  you see the following window

where you have the option to select the project for building. We can select the required project in the solution and can you can build the project.

• Solution Wide Comments You can add task lists and comments to your solution. To view the task list for your solution select view menu and click on TaskList option. Ctrl + W, T you will see the following window

You can add the task list items to window by writing the following snippet in the code file.

//TODO Write some code 

Which really helps the developer to set reminders to write the code and also useful to suggest the developers to refactor the code by setting the TaskList comments.

• Snippet Designer      Download the Snippet Designer

The above snippet designer is a plug-in which integrated in to the visual studio IDE which adds a rich and productive experience to the developer.

It allows the developer to write a snippet in the IDE as follows

To insert a snippet for example to write class type class and double tab it inserts class template.

code snippets are really great way to build the code.

Ctrl + K, X is the short cut for insert snippet. You can use Shift + Tab to navigate the categories in the snippet.

• Background Squiggles When you type some code in IDE and if the code having any errors it immediately shows an red mark under the identifier which you have written in the code.

for example:

It shows the above tool tip if the required namespace declaration miss in your code file. No need to write the namespace at the top just press the

Ctrl + . smart tag appears as follows

It automatically inserts the using statement in the using declarations section.

If the method is not defined in your code it generates the method for you

• Expand/Shrink Selection To select the statement in your code  you can use CTRL + ALT, = which allows you to select the logical blocks in your code and CTRL + ALT, –  to unselect the block of code.

• Organizing Using’s You may want to sort the using statements in your code file or you may want to remove the unused using statements. you can do as follows in the IDE

• Camel Case Navigation we all know that we can use arrow keys to move around the code in our file and we can hold the Ctrl key to move around the words and we can use Ctrl + Shift to select the words. Coderush comes with new shortcut Alt+Left and Alt+Right to move around the camel cases in code.

• Anonymous Type  In order to expose anonymous code in public APIs we need to write some type casts. coderush comes with nameanonymous type it creates a new class.

• Extract Method you can select the code and click on extract method in smart window and shows the preview as shown in the window

Here I am summarizing what we have learnt in this post

We will have the following concepts in implementing the Singleton pattern

• We declare a private constructor which prevents other classes to create an instantiation of the singleton class. It also prevents the sub classing.
• We declare a class as sealed so that it can not be instantiated.
• We declare a static variable for holding the reference of a singleton class.
• We declare a public property to return the singleton instance.
• We declare a method for returning the message from the singleton class.

The problem with the above code is it is not a thread –safe code. For example if two threads evaluates the if condition in the above code and both returns the true.

We will rewrite the code for thread safety

The above implementation is thread safe but having the performance issue.

Every time the lock is acquired whenever you request the object.

We can write the above code with out implementing the locks as follows

The static constructor in C# only be called whenever you create a instance for the class.

with Visual studio IDE. They may have to understand the following activities to do their job.

• Understanding Code Developer must be able analyze the relationship between classes and what API it is using for implementing the logic.
• Navigating Code Developer may or may not know where he want to navigate to the code and keep track of visited files in the code.
• Writing & Modifying Code Developers may require to modify the existing code like refractoring which involves make the code readable and fix bugs etc
• Debugging & Testing Understanding the using of debugger tools and writing unit test cases.

Visual studio provides the tools for all the activities mentioned above to make the developer efficient and productive. This post speaks about using the tools available in VS 2008 sp1. It also discusses about the tool coderush express which Microsoft partnering and allows the developers to download and use freely.

 Download Coderush for C#

1. One of the short cut for goto definition is F12

For example you have an identifier and you want to know where it is declared just press F12. If the identifier is not your project then it shows the metadata of the identifier. eg we are viewing string class

2. When you bring the code definition windows by Ctrl + W, D  you will see the following picture

When you move the code on top window it shows the declarations in the code definition window.

You can use Ctrl + Shift, 8 to come back from the declaration. F12 is for go to the definition of window and Ctrl + Shift, 8 is to come back to the origin.

You can also view the Navigation stack by Ctrl –.

3. To find all the references in your project for a particular method or type you can use Shift + 12 which shows the following window in IDE

To navigate to the references list window you  can use F8.

4. Some times when you are working on a really big project and you want to know which file you are actively using and you want know where it is in solution explorer. You can find the file in the solution explorer by going to Tools-Options dialogue box and selecting the General option under the projects solutions.

You can track the active item in solution explorer by checking the above option.

5. Code rush express short cut when you want to go to the file use

   Ctrl + Alt + F you will get the following window

It also filters the files based on the input and camel case .

If you want to go to any type or method in your project then you can use coderush shortcut   Ctrl + Shift , Q it show the following window 

If you want to see the identifier where it is used in the project you can use

Ctrl + Alt , U.  you can use tab key to navigate between the identifiers.

6. To navigate to the open files in the IDE you can use Ctrl  + Tab

you can also use Ctrl + Alt + Down to bring the following window

7. Viewing the class designer

you can view the class designer of the class and it dynamically updated whenever you change the class in code definition window.

summarizing what we have learned so far

In the next post I will explain about more tips.

The ?? operator in C# called null-coalescing operator is used to define a default value for a nullable value types and reference types. It returns the left-hand operand if it is not null and returns right-hand operand if it is null.

example

// ?? operator example

. int? x = null;

int y = x ?? –1;

// Here the value of y will be –1.

int i = GetValue() ?? default(int);

Assigns the return value of the method to i if  return value is not null other wise it assigns default value

It can be used with reference type as follows

string s = GetStringValue(); // ?? also works with reference types. // Display contents of s, unless s is null, // in which case display "Unspecified". Console.WriteLine(s ?? "Unspecified");

Using keyword in C# can be used as directive and as well as statement.

When you use using as Directive you will get the following advantages

• You can use the types in a namespace by declaring with using keyword.

        example: using Systetm.Web;

• You can define a alias for the nested namespaces

       example: using alias = CompanyName.ProjectName;

When you use using as Statement it defines the scope and allows the programmer to release the resources used by the object in the defined scope.

The object mentioned in the using statement must implement IDisposable interface. A using statement is can be exited when the end of the using statement is reached.

example :

Font font2 = new Font("Arial", 10.0f);
using (font2)
{
    // use font2
}

Multiple objects can be used in with a using statement, but they must

be declared inside the using statement.

example:

using (ResourceType r1 = e1, r2 = e2, …, rN = eN) statement

it is equivalent to the following code

using (ResourceType r1 = e1)

   using (ResourceType r2 = e2)

      …

         using (ResourceType rN = eN)

            statement

Windows Azure is an operating system for windows cloud. This post speaks about key features and how can we use windows Azure.

What does this mean and what is windows cloud these questions will come up in mind????

Windows cloud is a set connected servers on which developers can install and run services. we can also store and retrieve data from the servers.

Imagine you are building a desktop application it might include the following steps

• Selecting the hardware for the application
• Selecting the storage mechanism
• Writing some Job schedulers
• Writing an application installer for the application.
• and more…..

The above steps are normally done by every developer in a day-to-day activities.

So Windows Cloud replacing all the above steps.

What is missing on the windows cloud? Operating System!!!!!!!!!

This operating system provides the same facilities as normal OS But on a set of connected servers.

Key Features for the service developers

• Automated service management : you write your code and rules windows azure take care of deploying your code run on the machines.
• Powerful Hosting Environment: Virtualizes the environment
• Scalable, available storage: which contains blobs,tables and queues
• Rich Developer experience: The developer can simulate everything that happens on windows cloud.

In the next post i am going to explain about writing a sample application on windows Azure.

The logo is on light background and dark background.

Why this logo?

It stands for consistency, robustness and greater user experiences. It is reflected in newer brands such as silver light, surface and more. The letter ‘N’ in the logo will become shorthand for the .NET brand name.

This post speaks about the future of C# which presented by Anders Hejlsberg chief architect of C# at PDC 2008. The coming version C#4.0 is much concerned on introducing Functional and Dynamic programming language concepts into the C#. It also speaks about C#4.0 features.

The factors that shape the C#4 are

• Declarative programming
• Dynamic programming
• Concurrence programming

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Declarative programming

Imperative programming style makes programming tedious and very hard for execution environment to execute the statements efficiently.

Example Let say we are writing a program for sorting some data in memory by  looping up in dictionary and setting a for loop for completing the logic. By the time this program compiles the JIT compiler has no choice it has to execute the statements step wise as we wrote. There is no way for JIT compiler to automatically paralyze the execution of the program.

Instead if you write the program in higher level example in LINQ then there is a better chance for JIT compiler to execute them in parallel.

Dynamic programming

It introducing the features like in dynamic languages [ruby,python] such as implicit typing and meta-programming.

Concurrency 

Writing the programming in multiple units that can execute parallel in multi core

environment.

C# 4.0 Language Features

• Dynamically Typed Objects
• Optional and Named Parameters
• Improved COM Interoperability
• Co- and Contra-variance

.NET Dynamic Programming

DLR Dynamic Language Runtime is a technology which unifies the Dynamic  Programming on .NET platform. It is an extension of CLR and it on top of  CLR.    It has the core capabilities like expression tress, Dynamic Dispatch and Call Site Caching.

It has Object Binders to talk with technologies .NET,silver light,python and ruby.

DLR giving you single programming experience by allowing you to talk with all other environments  shown in the above figure.

Dynamically Typed Objects

  The above code snippet is having Calculator class which is statically typed one. We have a method GetCalculator() which returns of the type Class Calculator. It is having add method which produces the SUM of two numbers.

Now let say that Calculator class which not written in .NET and it is in some programming language like ruby,python or assume it is a COM class.

If the Calculator class is written in COM then we need to write the following code to use the class

If the Calculator written in Java script then we may need to write the following code to use the class.

There is no unification in programming and we writing different syntaxes for getting the same result.

With C# 4.0 it possible to write the following code for unification of the programming.

The dynamic works like

anything can be assigned to dynamic as shown in below

You can declare variables of type dynamic and it is just like object and at runtime it determines the actual type assigned to it. Similarly the result is also of type dynamic.

Let us take a practical example to explain how dynamic works

We are looking Math class in System which contains an overload method absolute for variety of types.

In statically type code we might write the following code to get the result from Math class

We can write the same code above in dynamic programming using C# as follows

It resolute the method at runtime.

In the next article I will explain the other features of C# 4.0.

The Microsoft Health Common User Interface (CUI) provides a toolkit with controls which addresses wide range of patient safety concerns for Health Care Organizations all over the world. This tool kit allows the developers to build a new generation of Health Care Applications.

With Microsoft CUI you can

• Quickly and easily develop a Health Care Application
• Design guidance for developing the applications
• Develop applications in Visual Studio Environment

Microsoft developing all these controls using Windows Presentation Foundation and Silver light 2.0 technology.

Microsoft Demonstrated the Features of this controls by developing a patient journey application in NHS 2008 summit.

The following are some of the screen shots of the Application

• Dynamic Search and Results slider

• View and explore Patient clinical record

• Monitoring multiple patients, interaction with technician via communicator

• Monitoring Live ECG

• Using magnification tool

Conclusion

Detailed information is provided in the Microsoft Health CUI Design guidance to ensure correct implementation. These controls are using the best practices in the healthcare industry which reduces the incompatibility issues with third-party health care systems.

This post explains the SharePoint 2007 features which helps the end users to understand the benefits of MOSS.

Document Library One of the most used features of SharePoint is the document library. It allows the users to manage documents by uploading them to libraries and manage rows and columns of information which is similar to spreadsheet.

Lists another interesting feature in SharePoint 2007(MOSS) which composed of rows and columns much like spreadsheet. Different types of lists in SharePoint are Announcements, Contacts, Discussion Board, Links, Calendar, Tasks, Project Tasks, Survey and Custom Lists.

Workspaces,Pages and Sites Workspace in SharePoint is a collection of sites and pages.

Personalizing with personal sites Personal sites allow the users to create site where they can manage personal information on their profile and store personal documents and contacts.

Collaborating with SharePoint 2007 New collaboration techniques such as Blogs, wikis and RSS feed support were added in the MOSS.

Workflow Workflows are now available in SharePoint 2007 with this you can quickly create and test workflows. Standard workflows like Approval,Collect Feedback, Collect Signatures are provided.

Enhanced Calendaring SharePoint 2007 includes advanced calendaring functionality allow you to create the team calendars.

Accepting Emails Directly into Site Content It has the capability of accepting emails directly into site content. for example emails sent to cvs@comany.com can droop directly into a sharepoint library.

Improved Search Capabilities The completely redesigned now offers easy to use and enterprise functionality.